Netherlands

The Netherlands, Holland in common speech, is the low country of north-western Europe, twelve provinces with Amsterdam as constitutional capital and The Hague as the seat of government. After the Dutch Republic's long decline, the Batavian Revolution of January 1795 swept it away, and the French years gave way in 1813 to the return of William Frederick as Sovereign Prince. The Congress of Vienna joined the southern Netherlands to the north to make a strong kingdom on France's border, and William became King William I in 1815. The southern provinces rebelled in 1830 and became Belgium, recognised in 1839, and the Java War nearly bankrupted the rump until the Cultivation System of 1830, which took a fifth of the East Indies' produce, restored the treasury. The constitution of 1848 made the country a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, universal male suffrage followed in 1917, and pillarisation, tolerance and coalition government became its marks.